Isham Farm

Isham Farm is a new family home set within a working farmstead in open Northamptonshire countryside. Rather than borrow a suburban language that would feel out of place here, we took our cues from the agricultural buildings all around it — a long, simple barn form under one clean run of roof, quietly at home among the fields and mature trees.

The materials do the talking. Weathered red brick grounds the house to its setting, silvered timber cladding softens the upper storey, and a standing-seam metal roof draws the whole form together with a crisp, contemporary line. Slim windows are set deep into the brick, a run of timber brise-soleil shades the big south-facing glazing from summer sun, and a single-storey brick garden room reaches out to hold a sheltered courtyard between house and landscape.

Behind the calm of the drawings sits a lot of careful coordination — working the design through concept and into a planning application, balancing generous daylight against comfort and running costs, and pulling together the wider team so the finished house is as considered to live in as it is to look at.